Most of us lead extremely busy lives that we’re expected to keep track of at all times. Whether we have stressful jobs, school work, or plenty of social events, it’s crucial that we remember what we have to do and when we have to do it by. Therefore, to-do list applications can become one of our best friends because they are a reliable aid to keeping our lives in check.

Linux users have a fairly decent selection of to-do list applications, but I’ve gone through most of the noteworthy ones and selected those which I’d recommend myself.

Wunderlist

The top spot would have to go to Wunderlist, and not just because of its name. The two areas which I find most important when it comes to to-do list applications, they have to be extremely functional and accessible. Wunderlist accomplishes both of these pretty nicely, especially when it comes down to accessibility.

Wunderlist is natively available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS. You can also log into their web app via any browser, as you need to create a new account to use Wunderlist, and all data will be synchronized to the servers. With Wunderlist, you can add tasks, add due dates, add notes, share tasks, move them around, and more.

It would be nice if Wunderlist had some sort of tagging system, but lists will have to do. It would also be nice if it could sort tasks, but, again, this isn’t really necessary in my opinion because “smart sort” options in other solutions tend to not work very well.

However, if you don’t require such a broad range of supported platforms. However, it would be nice to have it on Android and iOS so that it can be accessed via mobile. It also lacks features like tags.

Getting Things Gnome

Getting Things Gnome comes in at a close third place, but it could almost steal the second spot. This little app is extremely functional when it comes to available task options and organizational tools. It offers some features which the previous two options lack, such as tags. In fact, one of the cool things about GTG is that you can add tags within a task’s description by using ‘@’.

However, it doesn’t have any synchronization support, unless you pull some very clever tricks. If you plan to be working on the same computer for most of the day (or at least whenever you need to change something on your to-do list), GTG is a great option.

Tasque

Last but not least is Tasque. This is the most simple solution available out of these four, and I included it because there are plenty of people who value simplicity and minimalism. The only things you can add/change in Tasque are task name, priority, due date, and lists. However, it can even use Remember The MilkRemember The Milk - A Beautiful, Feature-Rich To-Do App For iPhoneRemember The Milk - A Beautiful, Feature-Rich To-Do App For iPhoneDo you have a lot on your plate? Sometimes the things we need to do between work and home can feel overwhelming, and nearly impossible to remember. That is where applications like Remember the Milk...Read More as the task management system, which adds some nice synchronization functionality. If you like this approach, then Tasque is definitely for you!

taskwarrior is the best and efficient task manager i test far away from wunderlist and nitro. All tasks are stored in plain text files, so sync with dropbox or any similar cloud service. Zim is very good as well, but i prefer to split my tasks and my notes.

I run qmytinytodo on my personal web server. Go to a URL on any system and there's my todo list (password protected, natch). Being geeky: still useful for something. You want your todo list to 'synchronize', you run the server end yourself...

Whether you are a Windows, Linux, Mac user unless you actually perform the to-do task, it does not matter how many list managers you have or good they are. Unfortunately no one has yet come up with an app that will force you to perform the tasks on your to-do list.